Who am I?

How do you protect something when you don't know what it is?

It seems that we Canadians spend a lot of time worrying about the erosion and Americanization of our culture. Our fears are reflected in the regulations governing the film and television industry (Canadian content, funding criteria). The powers that be set us a goal. They want us to produce "Canadian stories."

Uhm...say what now?

What's a Canadian story? Are there any stories unique to us? What's it mean to be Canadian? I still haven't figured it out. It reminds me of my time at the University of British Columbia studying Political Science. As part of my undergrad I took a couple of Canadian politics courses, much of which were devoted to the question of "What does it mean to be Canadian?"

People kept throwing thoughts out for consideration.

"Canadians are peaceful!"

"Canadians are socially aware!"

"Canadians are tolerant!"

All true, but none really capture the imagination to provide the be-all-end-all definition of what it means to be Canadian. In fact, the closest we ever came to said definition was "Well...we're definitely not American."

Whenever one of my classmates said that I was always disappointed. Defining yourselves as something you're not just seems so...negative. I felt even worse about it once I started focusing more and more on my writing for one simple reason.

Good stories are universal. They should reach across differences and be able to move an audience regardless of their cultural background. After all, we're all human beings sharing one delicate little ball called Earth.

I think that by putting such an emphasis on developing "Canadian Stories" that sometimes we lose sight of that.

And it's something that I'm just as guilty of as Telefilm or anyone else. I'm in the process of putting together an application for the Canadian Film Centre's Prime Time Television Writing program (yeah, yeah...a year in advance...I'm a keener) and find that I'm obsessing about whether or not my spec project's are going to be "Canadian" enough.

Ultimately I think I'm just going to say "screw it" and tell the best damn story I can, Canadian or not. Here's to aiming to be universal, being everything to everyone.

Hell, if that's not Canadian what is?